Page 30 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 02.24

PAGE 30
ALL-PURPOSE PORT PORT OF HAMBURG MAGAZINE 2/24
With a special boiler bridge that can be lowered by just two centimetres, it was possible to go from Kassel to Hamburg.
rather protracted process until all the approvals and authorisations have been issued for the planned rou- te. This also often delays the start of transport,” exp- lains Holger Dechant, managing director for over- sized and heavy transports at Gruber Logistics. After all, train combinations of 60 metres in length, around four metres in width and 4.55 metres in height had to be brought to the Port of Hamburg by road.
The first engine could embark on its journey to America in early 2021. During this process, a round- about near Paderborn had to be modified and a central lane asphalted. “In fact, the ailing infrastruc- ture in Germany meant that only one route was pos- sible – and even then, a lot of work was required to overcome obstacles,” emphasises Dechant.
In order to transport the trains, a special low-loader trailer also had to be designed and built. The trailer can be lowered down to two centimetres above the road surface, enabling passage through the low bridges found along the route. The 90-tonne loco- motive bodies each needed four nights to traverse the first stage from Kassel to Hamburg – 360 kilo- metres in total. For inclines and downhill stretches, a second tractor unit was used that could push and brake the trailer from behind.
In charge of organising the transport and unloading at the US port was the logistics specialist Züst &
Bachmeier, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gruber Logistics. StB Verkehrstechnik was responsible for implementing all necessary measures for preparing the route and accompanying the transport with four vehicles in total. The company took care of the road transports exclusively by itself.
Altogether, it took almost three years until all 25 loco- motives could be loaded onto ships. “Although we of- ten have to deal with unusual cargo, this was an ext- raordinary project even for us. Due to the long duration of the project, we had to keep reviewing and updating our plans. The collaboration of our different teams ac- ross the companies involved ultimately allowed us to complete this project smoothly. If you take all 25 transports together, we actually circled the earth four times with the engines,” notes Dechant.
The engines had to take another diversion on the fi- nal kilometres through the Hanseatic city of Ham- burg. This was because the Ellerholzbrücke bridge, which leads directly to the Unikai departure termi- nal, was unable to bear the heavy convoy due to its overall weight of 230 tonnes. The locomotives were thus lifted off the truck at Burchhardkai using a floating crane and carried six kilometres along the Elbe to the departure terminal. Once the locomoti- ves arrived here, they were mounted onto their bo- gies and then loaded onto a ro-ro ship, which took them the 6,000 kilometres to New Jersey.
© Hanseatic Energy Hub GmbH/ Brunsbüttel Ports
© Gruber Logistics